


a thing of cream and stars

by rainny_days



Category: Arashi (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Angst, Attempted, Confessions, Emotional Manipulation, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Friendship, M/M, Miscommunication, Misunderstandings, Mutual Pining, but it's friendship, high-octane drama, idiots being idiots, toradora-inspired
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-01
Updated: 2020-07-01
Packaged: 2021-03-05 00:55:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 14,350
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25015831
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rainny_days/pseuds/rainny_days
Summary: Jun is in love with Nino’s best friend. Nino is in love with Jun’s best friend. In theory, this makes them perfect wingmen for each other. In reality, they’re having a harder time trying not to commit murder first.
Relationships: Aiba Masaki & Ninomiya Kazunari, Matsumoto Jun & Ohno Satoshi, Matsumoto Jun/Ninomiya Kazunari, Matsumoto Jun/Sakurai Sho (one-sided), Ninomiya Kazunari & Ohno Satoshi, Ninomiya Kazunari & Sakurai Sho, Ninomiya Kazunari/Ohno Satoshi (one-sided)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 22
Collections: Ninomiya Exchange





	1. Jun

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ltgmars](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ltgmars/gifts).



> ahhhh it’s here! the last ninoexchange....it’s fitting that it’s the longest complete fic i’ve ever written for any fandom. thank you to Inez, who I hope will be at least a little uplifted with this fic that grew to be kind of a monster. also thanks to anu, who was kind enough to find time to listen to me sob about wrestling this beast down despite her own busy schedule.

Unrequited love makes for strange bedfellows.

Much later, when things have snowballed far too much to fix, that would be the thought that runs through Jun’s mind. 

In the beginning of it all, though, as he is pulled unceremoniously into an empty classroom on his way out of school, the idea that he and Ninomiya Kazunari had anything in common couldn’t have been further from his thoughts.

“Shut up loser, we need to talk,” Nino hisses in his ear, glaring at him in a particularly nonthreatening way from about a foot under Jun’s head.

“Are you _kidnapping_ me?” Jun demands, incredulous.

“Yes, because you _fucked up_ ,” Nino informs him, to Jun’s absolute bewilderment. Nino’s annoyance melts into smugness as he takes in Jun’s expression, making him look especially punchable. Jun doesn’t think of himself as a particularly temperamental person (shut _up,_ Ohno, he was _not_ like an angry cat), but he’s always willing to make an exception for someone as cheerfully irritating as Nino.

The shorter boy grins at him, nothing but lazy amusement left on his face. “Don’t look at me like that, Jun-pon-”

“Don’t call me that.”

“- I’m saving your adorably flat ass here!”

Before Jun can give in to his murderous urges, Nino pulls something out of his pocket that makes his stomach drop.

“ _Now_ he gets it,” his captor says, waving the cream-colored envelope in his hand, cheerfully irreverent. To Jun’s mounting horror, the envelope is _open_.

“How-”

“You left it in the wrong desk, dumbass,” Nino tells him. “I have to tell you, I was shocked for a second- never thought that our resident hottie would have a crush on little old _me_!” the idea of anyone thinking that he might have a crush on anyone who regularly wears a shirt that he’s owned for half a decade causes Jun to fall into a moment of existential horror so deep that he blacks out for a second. By the time he regains consciousness, Nino is at the tail-end of his spiel.

“- turns out that it was for my _B-F-F_!” Nino spells out the word, sugar-sweet and mocking. “I have to say, getting the best friend to pass on a love note is a little...middle-school.”

“ _Obviously,_ ” Jun hisses out, pulling himself together. “I didn’t know that was _your_ desk.”

“We switched seats last Friday,” Nino tells him. “You really have to brush up on your stalking skills, Matsumop-”

“I will _end_ you.”

Nino pauses. “Like, sexually?”

Jun knees Nino without mercy.

“Jesus _christ,_ ” Nino groans, downed. “I was fucking _joking_ , you psychopath.”

“What the fuck do you want,” Jun demands.

“I was offering to _help_!”

Jun freezes, staring. “Excuse me?”

“A _deal_ , asshole,” Nino staggers to his feet. “I have something you want: Sho-chan’s attention. And _you_ have something _I_ want-”

He stops abruptly, raising his eyebrows meaningfully in Jun’s direction. Jun observes him silently, watching his face flush slowly, fascinated.

“I...do?” he prompts, after a few moments pass in silence. Nino scowls at him, as he expected Jun to have _known_ about whatever it was that he wanted; the thing he wanted enough to help set Jun up with his best friend.

Jun’s brain catches at the tail-end of this thought, turning it over.

Something that was valuable.

Something that was valuable enough to set Jun up.

With his best friend.

His best-

“Oh my _god_ ,” Jun splutters, barely having the composure to notice the flicker of absolute fear on Nino’s face. “You want _Ohno._ ”

“Don’t sound so surprised,” Nino grouses out. “It’s not like I’m _subtle_.”

Jun opens his mouth. Closes it. “I thought-” _I thought you were joking,_ he cuts himself off from saying. There’s something in the planes of Nino’s face and the subtly defensive way he holds himself that stops the words in their tracks. “Why do you need my help?” he asks instead.

“Because your best friend is an _oblivious moron_.”

Jun almost protests, but it’s a fair point.

“And so is mine,” Nino continues. “Which means that we are in an ideal position to...help each other out.”

For a second, Jun considers telling him to fuck off, to forget about the letter and stay out of Jun’s way instead of annoying Jun like he _always_ does. The words hang off the precipice of his tongue, waiting to be said.

He doesn’t say it.

“And how do you propose we do that?” he asks instead.

Nino smirks, the way he does every time he and Jun cross paths in the halls, a very specific twitch of the lips that never fails to make Jun’s vision go so red that he almost forgets about the beautiful boy that’s more often than not standing beside him. It’s a particularly infuriating trait of his.

“W- _ell,_ Matsumoto-chan,” Nino drawls. “How do you feel about bowling?”

Jun blinks.

“Bowling?”

✼

It was the dumbest idea Jun had ever heard.

“It’s a _brilliant_ idea,” Nino breezes, irritatingly sure of himself. Jun’s always found himself both envious and resentful of the shorter boy’s laissez-faire attitude, the way that Nino seems to be able to bullshit his way through everything with a wink and a jaunty wave. If Nino’s had to work more than he absolutely has to one day in his life, Jun hasn’t seen it. “Imagine: a romantic bowling alley-”

“- good luck finding one that has a sufficiently _romantic_ atmosphere, and doesn’t stink of mold -”

“- a group of friends playing together -”

“- _‘friends’_ is a bit much -”

“And, oh? Poor little Nino doesn’t know how to bowl? Well, Oh-chan-senpai _must_ help with that-”

“- if you think Ohno has any skill in bowling, you clearly haven’t been watching him closely enough -”

“- and Sho-kun just _happens_ to get a text telling him to pick up some groceries on the way home, and hey, isn’t that right on the way to your house, J? -”

“- _don’t_ call me that -”

“- you should go with him! Put those big strong forceps to use and help your senpai carry his things home! It’s the polite thing to do.”

Jun levels Nino with a flat stare. “That,” he says. “Is the most transparent plan _ever._ They’ll see through it in a _second_.”

Nino waves an irreverent hand. “That depends on your acting skills, my dear Matsumop-chan-”

“- I swear to god, if you don’t stop with those nicknames this partnership will be over before it gets started. Because you’ll be _dead_.”

“So you’re agreeing to a partnership,” Nino surmises, grinning.

Jun scowls, reluctant. “An alliance,” he corrects. Pauses. “A _temporary_ alliance.”

“Whatever floats your boat!”

Nino stares at him expectantly, and Jun sighs. “ _Fine,_ whatever, as long as you don’t show Sakurai-senpai that note.” The smaller boy places a hand over his heart, mock-offended.

“I would _never_ ,” he gasps. His expression falls into a grin at Jun’s unimpressed look. “Well, I’m not gonna betray my True Love’s best friend,” he amends. “That’d just be dumb. Bros before hoes, and all that.”

“Did you just call yourself a _ho_?”

“If the shoe fits.”

Jun rubs his temple, feeling a familiar Nino-induced headache building at the back of his skull.

“I’m already regretting this,” he says, feeling the words right down to his bones.

✼

As it turns out, Ohno is not at all difficult to pull into their plan.

Some part of Jun kind of wishes he was, if only so he had some reassurance that Ohno had even the smallest modicum of self-preservation, especially if the plan was to get him into the path of a force as aggressively persuasive as Nino. But Jun knows Ohno well enough to not be surprised when the older boy responds to Jun’s faux-casual offer to go bowling - an activity which Jun would not be caught dead doing normally - with a small, placid smile and a nod.

Jun has his doubts about Sho being as easy to lure into so obvious a ruse, but Nino _is_ Nino. So when the day comes, Jun isn’t quite shocked when he finds himself standing beside a bemused senpai in front of a bowling alley, just the way they’d planned it.

“I didn’t know you were into bowling, Matsumoto-kun,” Sho says to him kindly, eyes soft and kind the way they always were. Jun digs his nails into his palm to stop himself from flushing.

“Well,” he says, not sure how to justify his sudden love for the sport. “I guess...I was in the mood for trying new things?”

Sho smiles, and Jun can feel his brain frantically working not to spontaneously combust. “That’s good,” he says. “I’m glad you and Nino are burying the hatchet. It’s nice to see you two not at each other’s necks anymore.”

“Ninomiya and I weren’t-” Jun starts, and is interrupted by Sho’s surprised huff as the boy in question hops onto his back, looping his arms around Sho’s neck like it’s something he does every day. From the way Sho’s arms go automatically to steady him at the thighs, Jun has a horrible feeling that it _is_.

“Don’t be silly, Sho-chan,” the smaller boy says sweetly, tossing a careless look past his shoulder at Jun. “Why on _earth_ would Mister J and I be at each other’s throats? We’ve never been anything less than the best of friends, right?”

“Nino, you’re heavy,” Sho huffs out, not looking overly bothered. Nino leans down to smack a kiss on his cheek, which Sho takes with resigned grace and Jun with murderous rage.

Jun grits his teeth. “...sure,” he says. “Friends.”

Nino winks at him before he seems to catch something out of the corner of his eye, countenance brightening. Jun follows his gaze, and sees Ohno approaching in his typical printed shirt and sandals. For a moment, Nino looks at Ohno with something in his eyes that makes Jun feel like he’s intruding- and then he beams and kicks Sho lightly in the side, falling lightly onto his feet as the older boy loosens his grip. He rushes towards Ohno, who looks at him with a kind of quiet, bemused affection, and loops their arms together as he pulls him past Sho and Jun.

Sho looks at them with something strangely like worry in his gaze, before turning back to Jun and smiling. “I feel like I should be afraid,” he jokes, all politeness and light again. “Nino’s bad enough without teaming up with someone as smart as you.”

“Nino and I are _not_ a team,” Jun lies. He blinks. “Wait, you think I’m smart?”

Nino smirks at him as Sho smiles, bright and beautiful. “Of course!” he says, and Jun almost doesn’t hate Nino and his stupid plan. Just for a second. “I’ve always thought you were smart, Matsumoto-kun.”

✼

 _see?_ Nino texts him that night, after Jun puts away the groceries that Sho had helped him to carry home. _i told u it’d work._

Jun looks at the text as he lies in bed and thinks about the way Sho had chatted to him about classes, easily and without pretension about his age. About how he had tilted his head back as he laughed, leaving his throat a long, pale line against the glowing streetlights. About the way he tried to hold the door for Jun, even while carrying two bags. About his voice as he said goodnight- soft yet so clear, so distinct. He barely remembers the specifics of what they talked about, but it had still been the best conversation he’d ever had.

 _Fine,_ he texts back. _What next._

✼

“Oh- Oh-chan, Jun-pon, what a surprise to see you here!”

Jun barely manages not to roll his eyes at the nickname as Nino falls into a seat across from them, one hand coming up to rest his chin in while the other tugs Sho into the seat next to him. To his surprise, another, taller boy sprawls into the seat on his other side, matching Nino’s sweet grin down to the last millimeter.

“Are you _reading_?” Aiba asks, sounding astonished at the concept as he reaches across to poke at Jun’s textbook. Jun swats his hand away without looking, sending a raised eyebrow to Nino, who just raises an eyebrow back.

“Well, it _is_ the library,” Jun deadpans. “I mean, I guess the concept is foreign to _some_ of you, but students have been known to do something like _studying_ here.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, of course I know what the library is!” Nino chirps sweetly. “Where do you think I borrow all my manga from, silly?”

“Don’t you mostly borrow your manga from me and Sho-ch- _ow_!” Aiba glares at Nino, who spares him no glance, and pouts over at Sho. “Sho-chan, Nino’s bullying me again!”

“I thought we were going to study,” Sho says, a small note of resignation already in his voice. Nino pats his head.

“Aw, Sho-chan, don’t worry! We’ll definitely study!” Nino’s smile grows a little. “I was just _thinking_ \- it’s _so_ unfair for you to be the only one tutoring me and this knucklehead here-”

“Hey!” Aiba yelps, going completely ignored.

“- so why not enlist some help? Between the top student of the third-years,” he fingerguns towards Sho. “And the top student of the second-years,” then towards Jun. “I bet we’ll even get someone like Aibaka in the top hundred of the exam ranking!”

“I’m already in the top hundred, you jerk!” Aiba says. “My science grades are way better than yours!”

Jun doesn’t see it, but judging from Aiba’s yelp, Nino is kicking him again. “ _Well_? Satoshi-kun, are you alright with forming a little study group?”

The look that Ohno levels Nino with is strange and loaded, unfamiliar to Jun. He looks over to Nino, and feels even more startled at his response: the slight flush of his cheeks, the way his eye flutter downwards slightly, almost guiltily. It’s over in a moment, but feels stretched-out, meaningful, as if they’d had an entire conversation in the span of a look and a response.

Jun feels- he doesn’t know how he feels.

“Okay,” Ohno says, as gentle as he always is. “I look forward to your help.”

For a second, Nino doesn’t pick up on the clear cue for what it is, and that’s somehow more startling than anything else.

“Well,” Jun says, after a moment. Nino flinches out of his stupor, and Jun looks at him as he speaks the part meant for him. “It’s going to be a little noisy if we do this here. How about...how about we go over to my place?”

✼

“You didn’t mention bringing Aiba,” Jun mutters on their way to his house. Nino shrugs a shoulder at him, unabashed.

“I can’t exactly omit my other best friend from everything I do, Junnosuke,” Nino murmurs back airily. “And besides, don’t underestimate the power of a tension reliever.”

Jun grits his teeth slightly, irritated at how Nino didn’t seem to care about his concerns in the slightest. “Look, if there are any _other_ unforeseen factors in your plans, I’d like to know them _before_ they’re laughing with-” he gestures to Aiba, who has an easy arm around Sho’s shoulders, saying something that makes Sho’s head tilt back with laughter and Ohno smile an easy, genuine smile.

Nino rolls his eyes. “Learn to roll with the punches, J, or life will be terribly boring.” Before Jun can retort, he dances to Ohno’s side, sending a wink towards Jun before slinging an arm around the older boy’s waist. He leans slightly upwards, whispering something in his ear that makes Ohno’s eyes gleam with amusement.

Jun stands behind the four of them, watching their easy banter, and for a moment feels strangely bereft.

“Matsumoto-kun?” Sho’s eyes are slightly worried as he looks back at Jun, and Jun forces a smile and walks up beside him and Aiba, letting himself fall into their conversation. Refusing to act on the small part of his mind that remembers that he hasn’t asked Nino about his and Ohno’s strange moment of silence back at the library.

It isn’t any of his business, anyways.

✼

“Wow, Jun-kun!” Aiba twirls around in Jun’s apartment, arms outstretched. “Nice digs!”

“Take your shoes off,” Jun replies, with a sardonic roll of his eyes. He turns to Sho. “Um, Sakurai-san, do you want- tea? Or something?”

Sho smiles at him like the sun coming out from behind the clouds. “Tea would be great, thanks, Matsumoto-kun.”

“He prefers coffee,” Nino whispers in Jun’s ear as he slips past, giving Jun a wink as he goes. Jun scowls at his back, but goes into the kitchen to pull out a coffee grinder.

He hears Nino whistling as he pads into the living room. “Damn, must be nice to live in the lap of luxury. All this just for your little old self, J?”

“Oh!” Sho sounds slightly startled. “Matsumoto-kun, you live alone?”

Jun comes out with a tray of coffee. “Um, yes,” he admits, feeling slightly awkward. “My parents- are away for business a lot, and it just made sense, and-”

“Yeah, yeah, no need to tell us about your poor little rich boy story,” Nino is fully sprawled on the largest sofa, head pillowed in an unbothered Ohno’s lap and feet kicking slightly at a grinning Aiba’s thighs. “More to the point, you have a TV this nice, and no game consoles? How embarrassing. Even Sho-chan has a Wii!”

“You were the one who made me buy it,” Sho mutters under his breath, and Nino blows him an unrepentant kiss.

“Some of us need to study,” Jun retorts, putting the tray of coffee down on the low table a little harder than he needs to. He turns to Sho again. “Uh, senpai, I didn’t really know how you took your coffee, so I brought creamer, and honey, and sugar, and milk, and-”

“Just the creamer’s fine,” Sho interrupts kindly, and Jun simultaneously files this information away as he wishes to be swallowed by the hardwood floor beneath him.

“I’ll have some sugar, please!” Nino requests sweetly. Jun immediately glares at him.

“Do it yourself,” he says, and Nino gives him an overblown pout.

He puts an arm over his face melodramatically. “But my poor hands!” he cries. “They’ve never done such delicate work before! I don’t know if I can do it. I mean, not without getting stains all over this beautiful white couch!”

Aiba and Sho snort in unison, and Jun sighs before dumping a few spoonfuls of sugar into a mug and tapping the bottom on Nino’s hand. Strangely enough, Nino frowns a little at him as he takes the mug, small fingers surprisingly cool against Jun’s, as he sits up and leans against Ohno’s shoulder.

“...thanks,” he says, but he doesn’t sound very sincere.

✼

Surprisingly enough, when Nino had talked about a _‘study session’_ he had apparently meant an actual _study_ session. Jun has been in the same class with him before, but he’s never seen Nino actually...studying. Aiba and Sho don’t seem perturbed, though, and Ohno _never_ seems surprised, so Jun keeps his own disconcertion concealed as they all sit around their textbooks and ask about this question and that.

Aiba, shockingly enough, was not kidding when he said that he was good at science, and promptly launches into surprisingly informative (if bizarrely worded) lectures on any questions lobbed his way. Sho takes over mathematics with all the grace of a monarch, and Jun is perhaps a little too dazzled by his easy confidence to listen to his explanations. 

Jun himself finds his niche in history and civic studies, but embarrassingly enough stumbles over his words whenever Sho - the top student of the entire school! - actually asks him for advice. Nino is infuriatingly quick to toss out answers whenever anyone mentions a language question, but spends most of his time softly and patiently explaining things to Ohno, who takes everything in with a quiet kind of perseverance.

At some point, he falls into an easy rhythm, almost able to forget about the object of his affections sitting right beside him, and he’s startled when Aiba’s voice rises in volume as he asks “Should we order some dinner, or something?”

Sho blinks. “Oh, it’s late!” he says, sounding a little startled. “I- I suppose we should be headed home.”

Nino smirks a little from his seat, and Jun somehow knows that he’s about to throw something unexpected into the works again. He makes a cutting-off gesture, but Nino blatantly pretends not to see him as he says, voice mock-innocent. “ _Well_ , we _could_ do that, but since tomorrow is Sunday, wouldn’t it be better if we worked a little later? I mean, if we stay a little too late, I’m sure the little lord has a guest room somewhere we can crash in.”

“Nino, we can’t _impose-_ ” Sho begins, but Jun cuts him off.

“It’s fine!” he says, trying very hard not to sound too eager. “I mean- if you’re okay with it, I have spare sheets and stuff...”

“Sleepover!” Aiba cheers, hopping to his feet only to be pulled back down by Nino’s firm hand.

“ _Right_ , then,” he says, saccharine. “Since that’s the case, Sho-chan, why don’t you and Matsu-pi go out and get some takeout for the rest of us?” he slants a look at Jun. “Don’t worry, m’lord, we won’t look for your porn collection, or anything.”

Jun kicks him as casually as he can, and Nino bares his teeth at him. Sho looks puzzled in a way that suggests that he’s aware that he hadn’t quite agreed to this change of plans, but has found himself going along with it anyway. For a moment, the butterflies in Jun’s stomach are replaced with a sense of deep commiseration.

“Sorry about...Nino,” Sho says, as they begin to walk to a store. Jun shrugs at him a little, taking in the outline of his profile against the darkening sky. 

He swallows. “It’s fine,” he says, quietly. “I- I don’t mind. I don’t do things like this a lot, so it’s-” he fumbles for an adjective. “Fine.”

Sho gives him a quietly knowing look. “My parents are away for work a lot as well,” he admits. “So I know how you feel. I didn’t know until I became friends with Nino how...how nice it is, to have people filling up a space.” 

“He does that,” Jun says, after a moment. “Changes things.” _Fills up spaces._ He thinks about the way Nino took Jun’s neat, well-thought out plan and spun it on its head as if it were nothing, the way he spun it into something so much bigger, barging his way into Jun’s neatly organized life until he’s made such a mess of things that Jun is standing beside Sho, about to have the first sleepover of his life.

That thought makes Jun open his mouth involuntarily. “I-” he begins. “Sakurai-senpai, I wanted- I wanted to tell you that-” he inhales, looks over at Sho, polite and remote, and swallows. “That I’ve always looked up to you,” he says, a small amendment of the words he means to say. “I mean, you’re so smart, and so driven-”

“So are you!” Sho says, looking pleased and a little flushed. “I mean, you’re the hardest worker I’ve ever met!”

“I’m not-” Jun waves a hand. “I’m not as smart as you are.”

Sho looks a little- sad? For a moment. “And I’m not as driven as you are,” he says. He purses his lips for a moment, then startles Jun by asking: “Do you believe in extraterrestrials, Matsumoto-kun?”

Jun blinks. “Um, I suppose, if I had to say, I don’t? But I’m open to the possibility!” he rushes to amend.

The boy beside him laughs, louder than he’s ever heard before, and Jun blinks as some part of him realizes that he’s never heard Sho’s genuine laugh from up close before. It’s a kind sound. “Don’t worry, Matsumoto-kun,” he says. “It does sound like something Aiba-kun would ask.”

As he calms himself down, Jun looks over at him cautiously. “Do _you_ believe in...extraterrestrials?” he asks, feeling a little awkward at the absurdity of the question.

To his surprise, Sho shrugs. “I don’t _not_ believe,” he says. “It’s a cop-out answer, I know, but two years ago, I would’ve laughed in your face if you had asked.”

“And now...?”

“Now I know Aiba-kun, and Nino,” Sho’s smile warms, eyes softening with affection. “And now I think that it’s wonderful to be open to the possibility.” he turns to look at Jun, who can’t help staring back. “Now, I _want_ to believe, because I want to think that things that I thought were impossible can be true, after all. That’s what being friends with them have given me.”

Jun thinks about impossible things, about the boy next to him, and nods. “I think I get it,” he says, and is surprised to find himself smirking a little at Sho. “And now I know that if I happen to see any UFO’s, you’ll be the first person I send a picture to.”

Sho laughs again, bright and genuine. Strangely enough, Jun finds that it doesn’t make his heart splutter the way it did the first time, only makes him feel something warm and quietly affectionate. “Don’t let Aiba-kun hear you say that, he’d burst into tears.” he says. “But thank you, Matsumoto-kun. I’m glad.”

“Call me Jun,” Jun says, and it feels like he’s stepped past a line that he doesn’t quite yet understand.

✼

When everyone leaves the next morning, Nino lingers behind. “So?” he asks, filching a coffee mug around Jun’s resigned expression. “Am I good or am I good?”

“Yeah, whatever,” Jun says. “I _guess_ you aren’t- _stop rummaging in my fridge!_ ” He tugs the back of Nino’s collar slightly, and is surprised when Nino falls back easily. He’s never noticed how tiny the other boy is, despite how big his presence makes him seem. “Aren’t you supposed to be going home?”

Nino smirks a little, like he’s in on some private joke. Jun really, truly despises that smile. “Aren’t _you_ supposed to be a little nicer to your guests?” he says, fluttering his eyelashes. “You weren’t so rude to _Sho-san_ ,” he imitates Jun’s voice almost perfectly. “Last night!”

“ _Sho-san_ didn’t try to poach my breakfast!” Jun shoves Nino at the door. Nino grins at him, but allows himself to be manhandled.

“Alright, Matsujun, whatever you say!” Nino pauses for a beat. “I _guess_ I’ll have to finish my coffee at home, then! Don’t worry, I’ll get the mug back to you as soon as I finish.” and before Jun can grab him, he slips on his shoes and out the door, leaving Jun to scramble after him.

“You’re not _stealing my mug_ , you gremlin!” he says, glaring. Nino smiles at him sweetly as he enters the elevator, seeming unbothered by Jun following after.

“Don’t be so stingy, Jun-pon!” he chirps, easily evading Jun’s attempts to grab the mug. They both walk out into the lobby, then out the front doors. “And besides, I _said_ I was borrowing it! I’ll get it back to you before the mug gets cool. I mean-” his smirk grows wider, and he stops so abruptly that Jun almost bumps into his back. “We’re neighbors, after all.”

Jun blinks. Follows Nino’s gaze. Finds it landing on a small, strangely familiar run-down structure right next to his opulent building.

“Wha-” he begins, and Nino winks at him, clearly delighted.

“In the future, if you want to shout at me, you can just stick your head out the window,” Nino gestures to the side of the small home, and Jun’s jaw drops as he realizes that the second-floor window of the house is almost directly parallel to a pair of familiar curtains.

“What the _fuck_ ,” Jun says, but Nino has already disappeared inside the front door.

(The next morning, Nino wakes up to the smell of eggs and bacon wafting through the air, and wonders blearily when they went grocery shopping without him noticing.

“Kazu!” his mother’s voice gushes as he walks down the stairs. “You didn’t tell me you had a friend coming over to walk to school with you!”

“Mmmmgwha,” Nino garbles, as he blinks at the sight of Matsumoto Jun wearing an apron over his school uniform, carefully scrambling eggs in bacon fat. He blinks again, then again, trying to dispel this clear hallucination.

“ _Nino-san_!” Jun says, sweetly malicious in the way that he never is around Sho. “Hurry up and put on your uniform, or we’re going to be late!”

“What are you doing here,” Nino asks, too caffeine-deprived to be coherent. Jun’s grin grows a little more poisonous, and Nino feels a momentary pang of regret at the fact that he’ll never see it again after their plan is complete. After Jun finishes smoothing over all his jagged edges to be the person he wants to see standing beside Sho.

“Making breakfast, of course!” Jun says. “It’s the _neighbourly_ thing to do, after all!”

When Nino’s mom waves behind them as they both leave the house, uniformed and thoroughly kissed on the cheek (at least Nino could witness Jun going absolutely scarlet under the charmed affections of Ninomiya Kazuko, a sight he’d thought he’d only be able to see induced by Sho), Nino spins to raise an eyebrow at Jun. “So, this is your revenge?” he asks, arch. “Making me breakfast? Color me terrified.”

Jun smirks at him. “More like, _making_ you go to school on-time,” Jun says. “And besides, you’ve invaded my life thoroughly enough. It’s only fair that I get to intrude on yours.”

Strangely, Nino doesn’t find it within himself to mind. “I suppose that’s fair,” he agrees, evidently to Jun’s surprise. He smiles sunnily at the taller boy. “I mean, if I’m getting food out of this arrangement, I’m not going to complain.”

And he doesn’t, as he finds Jun and his mother chatting over the breakfast table the next day. Or the next day, or the next.)

✼

Surprisingly enough, it takes another few weeks for Sho to begin to vocalise suspicions about Nino’s behavior. Or, at least, it takes another few weeks for it to get bad enough for Nino to complain to Jun about it.

“- _me_ , antisocial!” Nino complains around a strawful of iced coffee, half-sprawled on the cafe booth they’ve commandeered.

Jun rolls his eyes around his own cappuccino. “What a shocker,” he says monotonously. “ _You_? Antisocial? I can’t imagine what would’ve led him to that conclusion.”

He dodges a straw wrapper without blinking as Nino scowls at him. “You should be a _little_ nervous,” Nino grouses. “It’s _your_ beloved senpai that’s cottoning on, after all.”

It takes Jun a moment to realize that, actually, he doesn’t find himself minding all that much, though he doesn’t quite know why. “At least it means Sho-san is minimally observant,” he swerves around the subject of his own emotions. “Unlike Ohno-kun, whose head is perpetually in the clouds.” 

“You mean adorably oblivious,” Nino corrects, his scowl breaking into a small smile as Jun rolls his eyes at Ohno’s airheadedness. “C’mon, King J, don’t make that face, it might get stuck that way, and then what’ll you seduce our darling Sho-chan with? Certainly not your personality.”

Jun counts his inhale slowly, then exhales. Smiles. “And _you_ should work on softening your tone a little, if you want to sweet-talk _our_ Satoshi. I mean, what else are you going to use to win him over, your _face_?”

There’s a moment where Nino just stares at him in silence, and Jun wonders if he’s gone a little too far- he couldn’t have, it’s no worse than what Nino _just said_ to him, but what if-

And then Nino starts laughing.

Jun stares as the other boy’s clear, high laughter fills their booth, startled at how genuine the sound is. He realizes, suddenly, that this is the first time he’s made Nino laugh like this, unhindered and unrestrained. It’s a bright, strangely thrilling thought.

“ _Shit_ , our baby DoS leader gets off a good one!” Nino snickers out, using a thumb to wipe at the edge of his eyelids. “I knew there was a reason I liked you.”

“You _like_ me?” Jun blurts out, surprised for reasons he can’t articulate.

Nino looks at him strangely. “I mean, I don’t _hate_ you,” he says, looking amused. “I wouldn’t have asked you for help back then if I did.”

“Oh,” Jun says, instead of saying _I thought I was just your only choice_ , which is a little too pathetic to admit to Nino, who can and will use every raw nerve you expose to him to twist you around his pinkie. “I...guess I don’t hate you, either,” he says, and is surprised when he finds the words genuine.

His companion snorts. “I know,” he says. “You’re not good enough at pretending to hate someone to fool me.”

 _I was good enough to fool myself_ , Jun thinks, and the thought tilts him off-balance for the rest of the day.

✼

“What do you _mean_ , you can’t make it,” Nino scowls into his cell phone as he speaks, and Jun can almost hear Sho’s apologetic tones on the other end of the line. After a few minutes of hissing, Nino snaps his phone shut, and sends it a withering glare. “He says he ‘ _has a family thing_ ’,” Nino makes mocking air-quotes, frowning. “ _Honestly_ , what a dick.”

Jun snorts, crossing his legs under the Ninomiya house’s kotatsu. It barely works, but the thick blanket provides enough warmth against the autumn chill breezing through the windows. “You’re the one who didn’t warn him before springing the plan,” he reminds him. “You can’t blame him for not knowing about your _secret_ plans.”

“Watch me,” Nino grouses, leaning back on wiry arms. His glasses - which only comes on when he’s at home, as far as Jun could tell - rises a little on his nose as he squints in annoyance, and Jun feels a little burst of warm camaraderie for his obvious irritation. “Ugh, and I really wanted to have a double-date this weekend, too.”

“Is it a double date if half the dates don’t know that it’s a date?” Jun contemplates for a moment. Then: “You know, you can still invite Ohno-kun. I’m sure he’d go at this point.”

Nino’s gaze skitters to the side a little, the way that it does when it comes to Ohno sometimes, in a way that Jun doesn’t know how to interpret. “It’s fine,” he says. “I can’t mooch off of him for a ticket like I can Sho, anyways, so there’s no point.”

The reminder of Nino’s financial situation makes Jun pause for a moment, and he looks down at his cell phone, at the movie that Nino had insisted would be perfect for the next part of his seduction routine. He wonders, in a moment of insight, if it had been more of an excuse for Nino himself to justify the expense of watching something he enjoys.

“We can go,” he finds himself saying. “I mean, if you want.” When he looks at Nino, his eyes are shielded behind his glasses, unreadable. “It’s just that I kind of...wanted to see the movie myself,” he lies. “And it’s depressing to go to the movies alone, you know?”

The silence stretches between them for a beat too long, and Jun is just about to rescind his offer, feeling strangely off about it, when Nino speaks again, voice deliberately light.

“Sure!” he says, and Jun can’t read his tone behind his artificial levity at all. It’s still infuriating. “But you know you’re paying, right, J-man?”

Jun sighs, more in resignation than in protest, but can’t find himself too upset when he watches Nino’s lips twitch, barely holding down his evident delight. It’s nice, Jun thinks, apropo of nothing, to be able to read Nino like this. To be able to surprise him with his own joy, and to be able to read beneath his carefully curated expressions.

The movie is fine, some adaptation of a video game, all action and flash. Jun doesn’t understand half of it, but that’s more because of Nino’s muttered commentary making him too distracted with amusement to pay attention. They go back to Nino’s after, and his mother makes them udon for dinner. Looks at Jun with the same easy affection as she does Nino. When Jun goes back to his own apartment afterwards, he keeps his bedroom window open, and can still hear the bustle of the Ninomiya household as he falls asleep. It makes his own house feel a little less empty.

It’s surprisingly easy, he finds, to be Ninomiya Kazunari’s friend.

✼

Of course, it has to fall apart at some point.

✼

“You and Nino are getting along,” Ohno says, quiet and placid as always, chewing contemplatively on a red bean bun.

Jun looks up from his own neatly-made bento, blinking. “No we aren’t,” he says, automatically.

Ohno gives him a steady look that relays an entire book’s worth of conversations. “You two walk to school together,” he points out. Jun opens his mouth to protest. Closes it. “Don’t worry, I think it’s sweet.”

There’s a lot Jun could say to that, but he presses down on the words. “What about you two?” he says instead. “I think if anyone’s gotten closer, it’s you and him. After all, he hangs around you like a limpet half the time.”

Ohno gives a small shrug. “That’s just the way he is,” he says, and there’s something wistful in his voice. Jun sees the chance laid out in front of him, and he _knows_ \- he owes Nino this, after everything the smaller boy has done to help him and Sho.

He doesn’t know why he hesitates.

“I think-” he swallows. “I think it’s a little more than that with you, don’t you think?” When Ohno looks at him, it’s not with the shock Jun expects, or the happiness. Instead, there’s something familiar in his expression, some kind of quiet, resigned bleakness.

It reminds him of Nino, Jun realizes, and doesn’t know why that hits him with the force that it does.

“Jun-kun,” Ohno says, gently. “It’s alright, you know? You don’t need to make me feel better. I’ve had my chance.”

It’s more words strung together than Ohno sometimes uses in a week, and Jun can’t process any of them. Something starts echoing in his brain, huge and terrible, as he says, voice inexplicably weak. “What do you mean?”

Ohno looks at him, almost startled. But then he starts, quietly, to speak.

✼

If Jun had been in any mood to see it, he might’ve appreciated the symmetry of the movement with which he shoves Nino into an unoccupied classroom after school. 

“You didn’t tell me Satoshi _confessed_ to you,” he snaps, taking vicious satisfaction for a moment at the way Nino’s eyes widen slightly in shock, before shuttering completely.

“What does it matter?” Nino says. “I’m still trying to date him- nothing has changed about our arrangement.”

“You _rejected_ him once,” Jun doesn’t acknowledge his words, not able to articulate why, exactly, this made things different. “And now you want to, what, win him back again?”

Nino crosses his arms over his chest, a defensive gesture. “So _what_ ,” he hisses. “It doesn’t make a fucking _difference_.”

“It makes a difference to me if you’re trying to string along my _best friend_ ,” Jun’s voice is sharper than he thought it’d come out, and he’d never realized how much taller he was until he stands over Nino, casting a shadow over his birdlike frame. “It makes a difference if you just wanted to, what, satisfy your own fucking _ego_ ? Use him like a _trophy_?”

“ _Don’t,_ ” Nino lashes out, words honed to wound. “Talk to me about _ego_ , Matsumoto. _I’m_ not the one who’s only trying to fuck a senpai so I can make him the _piece de resistance_ for my goddamn picture-perfect _delusion_ for the future. Just because _I_ made a mistake _once_ , _years ago_ , doesn’t mean you get to sit on your fucking pedestal and lecture _me_ about how I’m deluding myself.” he steps forward, and Jun presses his heels into place. Refuses to give him an inch. “You think you’re in love with Sho, but you’re just fucking obsessed with the bits of yourself that you see in him. It’s not love,” his voice is softer now, a dagger to the heart instead of a flailing whip. “It’s narcissism.”

Jun looks Nino in the eyes, and tightens his grip on the poisonous anger inside of himself. “You’re just chasing after Satoshi because you think he’s the only one who’d put up with your shit,” he spits out, voice coming from far, far away. “And you know what? You’re right. God knows nobody _else_ in your life ever put up with you for more than they had to, and you threw away the one person who actually offered to stay? At least _I’m_ not too chickenshit to set fire to anything _good_ in my life just to destroy it before it leaves me.”

His voice is harsh by the time he finishes speaking, low and terrible in a way he hadn’t known he was capable of being. Nino looks at him, eyes still impenetrable in a way that Jun had forgotten they could be, the way they had been before he had been shoved into a storage room all those weeks and months ago. Jun notes, with a strange, startled almost-bemusement, how close they’re standing, almost nose-to-nose.

Nino closes his eyes for a moment, and when he opens them, there’s an amusement in them so artificial that it makes Jun’s throat itch with something sour and acrid. “That’s our Jun, getting off another good one,” he says softly, and Jun- doesn’t know what to say. He opens his mouth. Chokes on words that he doesn’t yet know the form of. Doesn’t _want_ to know the form of. Nino is so, so close, and yet further than he’s ever been.

Nino’s back looks terribly fragile, terribly small, as he takes a step back. Turns around. Walks away.

Jun doesn’t follow.


	2. Nino

(This isn’t a love story.)

✼

Once upon a time, there was a sweet, soft-spoken prince (who was a little too lackadaisical to be a prince and was more of an artist, really) and a sharp-tongued, cynical princess (who was a Cinderella type without the fairy godmother, though he was known to sing on occasion). The sweet prince and the cynical princess went to the same middle school, and became the best of friends.

As they became closer and closer, the soft-spoken prince and the sharp-tongued princess both fell in love with one another, though the prince realized this far earlier than the princess did. You see, the princess had never truly seen romantic love before, neither in himself nor in the people around him, and he didn’t recognise his feelings - or, rather, was too cowardly to acknowledge them - for what they were. 

One day, the lackadaisical prince asked the cowardly princess to be his love, and the princess was so shocked at the idea- so terrified at the thought of being loved- that he instinctively refused, and ran away. The artistic prince, rejected, watched his love run, and decided not to pursue, for he didn’t want to cause the person who held his heart to feel any more pain.

And so it was that the heartbroken prince and the foolish princess grew apart, even as the princess realized that he had also fallen for the prince, and was yet still too cowardly to admit it. It would be a long, long time before they spoke to each other again.

(But, no- this isn’t the right story. Try again.)

✼

Once upon a time, there was a clever, foolish princess, who found his childhood sweetheart after struggling through trials and tribulations (though they were more of the inner-contemplation kind than the dragon-slaying kind). When he finally found his lost love again, he found that the quiet prince had gained a knight at his side: one of those tall and dashing heroes types, with the hair to match.

The princess tried to reconnect with the prince again, but the knight kept getting in his way with his sharp gaze and sharper words. So the princess honed his own weapons, poking the knight until he found a weak spot. Finally, he found one, in the form of his own beloved, smart but terribly naive scholar.

This must be serendipity, the determined princess thought, and formed a contract with the knight: that they would both aid each other in pursuing their loves. And the plan worked- the princess learned about his prince all over again, and the dashing knight grew closer to his own love. 

They both got what they wanted, went their separate ways, and lived happily ever after.

(Aren’t you getting a little ahead of yourself?)

✼

Once upon a time, there was a princess who went on a journey to find his lost beloved. On the way, he picked up an errant jester and a naive scholar. However, this princess was smart, and knew that in order to recapture the prince’s love, he would need a knight by his side. So he found the knight closest to the prince, and made a deal with him. _Love for love_ , he said. _A new love to regain an old_.

The prickly knight agreed, and so they set off on a journey together. And as they were journeying, they found themselves alone with one another more often than not, and discovered that they had many things in common. Slowly but surely, they became friends, bound by something few others could understand.

But then, something terrible happened: they began to fall in love.

(You can’t tell a story that isn’t yet complete. 

One last time.)

✼

“Is Jun-kun not coming over for dinner tonight?” his mother asks him, clucking lightly over the stove. “I made his favorite too!” Nino stays silent and breathes through the pain, watching his mom worry over a boy that will never come over again, over the empty space Jun’s made at their dining table. Another small pain, on top of everything else.

“Mom,” he says, quietly. “I don’t think Jun’s coming over anytime soon.” _If ever._

His mother looks over at him, eyebrows furrowed. He gets his canniness from her, and he knows it’s pointless to try to hide things from her. He tries anyways.

After a moment, her face falls a little and she comes over to him, puts a palm on his face. “Oh, Kazu,” she says, gentle and a little scolding. “You’ve broken that boy’s heart, haven’t you?”

Nino doesn’t tell her _he also broke mine_ , because it’s not the point, and she’s not wrong. He thinks about Jun’s face as he left, the terrible open vulnerability of it. For all the ways that he and Jun intersected, Jun had always left himself helplessly and terrifyingly open in a way that Nino never understood how to be.

“I don’t know how to fix it,” he says instead, and doesn’t cry when she holds him close. He’s learned long ago that it doesn’t help anything anyways.

✼

He skips school the next day, because he knows Jun won’t.

 _r u sick_ , Aiba texts him, with approximately fifteen more emojis than characters. Nino stares at the screen for a moment. Doesn’t text back.

After a moment, his phone flashes again. _i saw matsujun in bio 2day._

_he’s doin his sadface!!!!!_

_the one where he looks like hes constipated but also crying very manly tears_

_):’( like this but with more EYEBROWS_

_i told u this was a bad idea!!!!!!!!_

At the last one, Nino huffs. Texts back _shut up._

_no insults? should i come over?_

Nino knows Aiba, has known him since they were both gap-toothed and knee-high and running around shoving each other into rivers (okay, so it was mostly Nino doing the shoving, but Aiba was prone to ‘accidentally’ tripping Nino’s entire backpack - gameboy included - into the stream, so it was equal, really). From anyone else, the text would sound teasing, but Nino can read the genuine concern in his words.

He hesitates, then texts back _don’t worry about it._

It doesn’t even take another minute until he gets a reply: _so come over asap, is what you’re saying._

_my mom doesn’t have enough food to feed a human garbage disposal like u_

_ <3 ill be there after school _

Nino squints at the heart, feeling annoyance and fondness rise in his chest in equal measure at the way Aiba always seems to be able to drag him out of his self-imposed teenage angst. It’s unfair, really. Nino _deserves_ to wallow in his depression, dammit.

Predictably, Aiba topples into the room about fifteen minutes after school ends, even though Nino ( _and Jun’s_ ) house is a half hour walk from the school.

“Did you _sprint_ here?” Nino asks, trying to sound nonchalant and amused. Aiba takes one look at him and swaddles him in a giant hug, ignoring Nino’s muffled protests. Aiba smells of grass and sweat and chocolate and Nino thinks that it would’ve been so much easier, so much more wonderful, if he had fallen in love with this wonderful boy instead. “Why does everyone keep _hugging_ me,” he mumbles, after a few moments of fruitless protests. 

Aiba laughs against his hair, and Nino can’t help but compare this easy sound to the way Jun laughs when he’s startled and genuinely happy: the unattractive snort that always makes Nino feel a little proud despite himself. The thought brings his mood down again, and he clings to Aiba a little harder.

“We’re hugging you because you’re sad,” Aiba says, simple as that. Nino doesn’t tell him what happened, and Aiba doesn’t ask. “Sho-chan was worried about you too, you know. He almost skipped cram school to come too!”

The thought of Sho makes something sour and guilty curl up in Nino’s stomach. “Aiba-chan,” he says quietly. “I have to- I have to fix this.” He can feel Aiba begin to nod into his hair as he continues: “I have to get them together.”

Aiba’s body goes still for a moment. “...Nino,” he begins, and Nino shakes his head into Aiba’s shoulder, wrenches himself away to look into his best friend’s eyes, big and brown and utterly earnest.

“I _have_ to,” he insists. “It’s the right thing to do, you _know_ it is.”

Aiba frowns down at him, then says in a voice far more knowing than most people see him to be: “But Nino, you know that Jun’s halfway in love with _you_.”

And those words drop silently and with the force of a grenade between them, an echo of the truth that Nino has inched around made real. Nino’s breath catches, falters. He looks down at his knees. Closes his eyes. Tells himself that, for once, he’s going to do the brave thing.

“Halfway in love isn’t _in love_ ,” he tells Aiba firmly. “Not the way he’s _in love_ with Sho.” _Love-love_ , he means, the kind that stayed when all other things faded.

“Nino-”

“It’s what I agreed to,” Nino says. “It’s the way it’s supposed to happen.”

He feels Aiba cup his cheeks. “You’re an idiot,” Aiba says, kind and resigned. “There’s nothing about this that’s _supposed_ to happen. That’s not how life works.” His eyes look over Nino’s face, and whatever he sees there makes him sigh in resignation. “But I don’t think telling you that is going to change your mind, is it?”

“Shut up,” Nino punches his arm lightly, a quiet thanks. “We all know that I’m the brains _and_ the beauty of this operation.”

✼

Nino goes to school the next day.

He and Jun don’t share a classroom, thank god, but they do share a hallway, a school, a plethora of spaces that became suffocatingly enclosed when shared with someone you don’t want to see. Nino darts between classrooms and takes long-forgotten routes, ignoring Aiba’s jibes about him pretending to be a spy. He has a plan, after all, and if all goes well-

Well. Jun might still be mad at him, but he’d be able to tolerate his presence. Nino could live with that.

The first part of the plan is simple and easy to carry out: find Sho. It’s even easier than expected, because when lunch rolls around, Sho comes to _him_ , lingering at Nino’s classroom doors with a slightly worried furrow in his brow. 

Nino strolls up to him, grinning. “Miss me, Sho-chan?”

“Aiba-chan said that you had ‘boy problems’,” Sho makes fingerquotes in the air.

“Aiba-chan is a dumbass,” Nino says placidly. “We both know this.”

Sho doesn’t seem mollified, which is fair- he _had_ known Nino for going on two years, now. “Seriously, Nino, are you okay?”

“I’m fine, _mom,_ ” Nino teases lightly, feeling a font of affection for his friend somewhere in the back of his lungs. The feeling is nearly enough to overwhelm the _other_ thing that’s blocking his airways, and Nino tells himself firmly that that’s why he’s doing this. 

“Is it about exams? Because you’ve always done fine, but if you need help-”

“Sho-chan, not everyone needs to get into some Ivy League school.”

“Well, no,” Sho admits, far easier than he would’ve years ago. “But, Nino, you know you could do _so much_ , right? With your brains-”

Nino rolls his eyes. “We’ve been over this- you’re the one who’s gonna become prime minister or something. I’ll be very happy in my mediocre desk job, thank you very much.”

Sho wrinkles his nose. “But, Nino-” he says. “Why limit yourself?”

 _Because the stories made for people like you are not the same stories that are for people like me_ , Nino knows better than to say. “Ugh, if you’re gonna make me listen to this, we’re going to the roof to have lunch.” He knows there’s no way Sho would deny him this, even with his fear of heights. Not when he’s still so worried about Nino. It’d almost make Nino feel guilty, if it wasn’t for his own good.

After all, there’s only one escape route when you’re on the roof, and Sho has always been terrified of heights.

They make it to the roof without trouble, after Aiba makes up some excuse for running errands for a teacher. It’s a terrible lie, but Sho is terribly naive when it comes to his friends. It’s something that Nino would clock as a weakness in most others, but with Sho it’s a conscious choice. A decision to put his faith in the people he truly befriends, and Nino respects that part of him far too much to belittle any quirks that came along with it.

“At some point I’m going to stop abusing my privileges for you,” Sho lies blatantly as he unlocks the door to the rooftops. It’s a key that only certain members of the student council have the authority to have, and that’s another reason Nino chose to lead them there. That it makes Sho bend the rules is only a delightful side effect.

“You l- like me far too much,” Nino says, barely tripping over the forbidden _L-_ word. It feels childish, dancing around a four-letter word, but he’ll take his comforts where he can.

Sho rolls his eyes, but doesn’t contradict him. The door to the roofs open easily, and Nino closes his eyes and breathes in the crisp, outdoors air for a moment. Revels in the freedom of it. He opens his eyes to see Sho smiling indulgently at him and sends his friend a beam back before they sit down to eat. He decides to be merciful and not force Sho near the fences- after all, he needs him to pay attention for the conversation that they’re going to be having.

“So,” he starts, not letting Sho get in any absurd ideas about the future. “I heard you got a perfect score on the mock history exam in cram school.”

Sho blinks. “Since when did you care about my grades?”

“Can’t I be happy for my dearest friend?”

“You’re usually happiest when I’m doing something incredibly reckless or against the rules. Usually both.”

“Maybe I’m feeling generous today and decided to let you talk about your nerd stuff for a while.”

“History isn’t exactly an interest of mine-” Sho starts to retort, and Nino seizes the opportunity presented to him.

“Then I wonder how you got such a high mark,” he gives a calculated sidelong glance at Sho, who knows him well enough to look wary. He pauses for a moment. “Maybe it has something to do with the teacher? Or,” Nino gives Sho a calculated smirk, and is grateful when it comes out steady. “Should I say: the _tutor_?”

He watches, with quiet resignation, as a flush crawls up Sho’s neck.

(Here is a truth: Nino has always known that this deal between him and Jun was stacked in his favor.)

“He calls you Sho-kun now,” Nino says, as if Sho didn’t notice. “Not to be an optimist-”

Sho snorts softly, still a little red. “You? Perish the thought.” 

_This is the right thing to do_ , Nino tells himself, remembering the brightness of Jun’s eyes when he finally got to talk to Sho, the shy joy in Sho’s voice when he called Nino after walking Jun home. This is a better love story than his, and he isn’t going to deny them that. 

He smiles a little, and it is only because Sho is looking down that he lets it waver once. Just for a moment. A last bit of weakness before he deals himself the final blow.

“- but I’m pretty sure he likes you, too.”

If he were in the right mood, Sho’s reaction would be a thing of beauty: a sudden, violent flush accompanied by a twitch of the lips that isn’t sure whether it wants to be a smile or a frown. There’s disbelief in his eyes, but hope, too. For all that Nino teases him, Sho knows that he would never make fun about something so fragile as this.

He looks over at Nino, taking in his face, and Nino makes sure that his expression is nothing but steady. “You-” his voice wavers a little. “You really think-”

“That our-” he catches himself on the slip, but manages not to fall. “That Ojunjunjun is completely head over heels for your stupid nerd ass?”

“You can’t call him that,” Sho says, momentarily distracted. “Nino, he’ll murder you.”

Nino smirks at him. “And you wouldn’t stop him? Ouch, I guess I know where I rank on the importance scale.”

“I trust you can take care of yourself,” Sho pauses. “Most of the time.”

Nino laughs a little, not letting himself hurt. “That’s me,” he agrees, dry. “Untouchable.”

Sho reaches out and ruffles his hair, and Nino lets him for a moment before shoving him away. “You know,” Sho says, reaching out and dropping a yakult into Nino’s palms. “Most of the time, you seem so confident. But sometimes- sometimes, I don’t think you know yourself very well at all.”

✼

Whenever he looks out his bedroom window these days, the curtains in the building across from him are closed. Sometimes, he thinks about climbing onto the handrails of his balcony, swinging himself onto Jun’s windowsill like some kind of deranged spiderman. It’s a stupid idea, it’s _such_ a stupid idea, but-

He’d never noticed how cold a broken kotatsu could get, without a set of stupidly long legs taking up most of the space beneath it.

✼

Nino waits, after that, for Sho to move the plan forward. He knows it won’t be Jun doing it, because Jun is too raw and too aware of the proximity of Sho and Nino to approach his crush. It has to be Sho.

Sho is _chickenshit_.

“Why the fuck,” Nino hisses, fingers digging into Sho’s elbow as he pops back out from behind him, having successfully avoided being seen by Jun as he walked by on their way out from school. “Have you not _done_ anything yet?”

“I can’t just-” Sho splutters. “ _Impose_ my feelings on an underclassman on nothing but your word, Nino! What if you’re _wrong_?”

Nino levels him with a venomous look. “I’m _never_ wrong,” he says mullishly. On his other side, Aiba snorts, and Nino gives him a swift kick in the shin.

“You can’t keep kicking below the waist just because you’re a tiny gremlin!” Aiba says, two decibels above his normal voice. Nino smiles at him.

“At least I’m not aiming _around_ the waist,” he says, eyeing Aiba’s crotch in a threatening way. Sho covers his eyes.

“I can’t see anything,” he mutters. “I’m not looking. I cannot see.”

“Nice meme use, Sho-chi!” Aiba gives him a thumbs up.

Sho looks back at him incredulously, staring until Aiba’s thumb drops. Nino scowls at both of them. “You two are _useless_ ,” he mutters. “Must I do everything around here by myself?”

“You’d love it if you could do everything by yourself,” Aiba points out, and Nino refuses to give him the satisfaction of a flinch. The benefits of a longtime childhood friend is that they know you in and out. The drawbacks of having a longtime childhood friend is that they _know you in and out_.

“ _Look_ ,” Nino hisses, glaring up at his two best friends in the world. “You _have_ to tell him, Sho-chan. It’s not _fair_ if you don’t.”

Aiba kicks elbows him lightly, sending him an admonishing look. “Like you can talk,” he says, and it’s a little cruel, but fair enough. Sho looks at him for a long second, and then gets a Look in his eyes that makes Nino take pause. For all that people branded he and Aiba as instigators of chaos, Sho could be every bit as petty and shit-stirring when he was in the mood to be. Nino wouldn’t be friends with him if he weren’t.

Jun needs someone like that, who can kick his ass when he needs it. Nino doesn’t let himself think any further than that.

“Actually,” Sho says, slow in a way that would read as thoughtful to any outside party, but that Nino reads immediately as _dangerous_ . “Considering fairness...wouldn’t it only be fair if _you_ confessed first? You were in love for longer than I’ve been, you know.”

There’s a moment where Aiba and Nino both wince in tandem, but Nino manages to recover before Sho notices, leaving Aiba stuck in an awkward half-grimace half-neutral expression. “...this isn’t about me, Sho-chan.”

“Well, you’d better _make_ it about you,” Sho says. “Because I’m not gonna confess until _you_ do.”

Nino stares at him incredulously, then says in a soft voice: “You absolute _coward_.”

“Takes one to know one.”

He looks towards Aiba for help, only to see him looking at Nino unsympathetically. “You were always going to have to talk to him,” his oldest friend says, gentle.

Nino grits his teeth, because he knows what Aiba is saying, and he _gets it_ . He _gets_ that it would be cruel to pull away from Ohno again, after all this time, that it would be awful and unfair of him. But maybe he’s an awful and unfair _person_.

As if reading his thoughts, Sho leans against him a little, tall and generous in the way people were when they could afford it. “You’re braver than I am,” he says, as if he hadn’t known Nino in all his weaknesses for years. “Maybe if you can be brave, then I can, too.” 

He was so _kind_ , Nino realizes, with an echo of despair. He was so kind and so good and so deserving of a happy ending. He would be kind to Jun. That’s all Nino could ask for. That he was kind, and that he made Jun laugh his stupid, wheezy laugh. Sho could do that.

And so, Nino could do _this_.

Nino sighs. “Fine,” he says, pressing his lips together tightly. “Fuck you, but fine.”

✼

It’s going to be hard to find Ohno without Jun, Nino knows. And Jun’s not going to let him anywhere near his best friend. Not after what happened. Nino tries not to wonder whether or not Ohno will be willing to talk to the person who hurt _his_ best friend so deeply. Because Ohno is kind: kind enough to leave step away from Nino when they hurt too much to be friends, but Ohno is _protective_ , too. Protective enough not to want to betray his best friend by talking to Nino. 

Nino had been avoiding Ohno because of Jun, yes, but he had been avoiding Ohno because of Ohno too. He didn’t want to find out if he’d lost Ohno once again- this time, for something that was irreversible.

Ohno looks unsurprised when he finds Nino in the park near his house, sitting on an empty swing. The place where they used to sit on the swings for nights upon nights, silent and comfortable in the knowledge that they were with the person who knew them best in all the world. 

“Hey, Oh-chan,” Nino says, not letting any of his fears show. Knowing that Ohno sees them anyways. He’s always loved that about Ohno, their ability to understand each other without ever having to address the simmering sea of unspoken words between them. It was so comfortable, so easy. The only time Ohno had breached that space, tried to build a bridge across their gulf of silent understanding, Nino had burned the steps before they could reach him.

It was so unlike Jun, who kept stacking words upon words, forcing things into the daylight and not caring about being stung by the person on the other side of the divide. He was so _frustrating_ , and Ohno was so simple. It should’ve been easy for him to turn away from the furious wildfire of Jun’s determination, into Ohno’s still, placid waters.

Ohno settles on the swing beside him, and Nino _aches_.

“...I’m sorry,” Nino says quietly, letting the words hang in the silence between them. It’s something he wouldn’t have said to anyone else, but Ohno deserves this from him. Has always deserved this from him.

Ohno looks at him, patient and steady. “For what?”

Nino laughs a little. “Do you want me to get out the list?”

“Hm, I’m mostly just wondering what you were most sorry about.”

Nino opens his mouth. Closes it. “I-” he hesitates, and Ohno’s lips twitch a little, halfway between sadness and wry humor.

“You should’ve seen Jun’s face, when I told him I’d confessed to you in junior high,” Ohno kindly ignores Nino’s flinch, and slowly begins to rock his swing back and forth, the creaking loud in the silence between their words. “I didn’t know somebody with such a strong jaw could go that slack.”

Nino snorts despite himself. “Did you take a picture?

“He told me about the deal, you know.”

Nino goes perfectly still.

He’d planned, on some level, on this happening. Ohno was more perceptive than he looked, after all, and Jun was more trusting than he liked to pretend. There was always a good chance that Ohno would’ve found out one way or another. It was to be expected.

It was terrifying.

“Oh,” Nino says, quiet.

“You know, you could’ve just told me.”

“Could I?”

Ohno almost looks quizzical at that, and Nino stares back, unrelenting.

“...Nino,” Ohno says, after a moment, looking like he’d seen something in Nino’s expression that genuinely surprised him. “You know that I’ve never stopped being in love with you, right?”

In the beginning of high school, Nino had looked up one day to see Ohno looking at him from the other end of the hall, and felt the air being knocked out of his lungs. He had been sure, absolutely certain, that his longing had been writ large all across his face, plain for Ohno to see. When Ohno had ducked his head and went back into his classroom, it had felt like an answer to his desires, a fitting punishment for what he had done two years previous.

He had never imagined, after that moment, that Ohno had _never stopped loving him._

“Oh, Nino,” Ohno says, reading Nino’s face with an ease that he’d never had with textbooks or exam papers. “And you call _me_ oblivious.”

Nino blinks rapidly. “Shut up,” he says weakly. “It was a fair assumption to make.”

“It was you,” Ohno says it simply, as if it were an obvious fact of the universe: the world is round, the sun rises in the east, and he was always going to be in love with Nino.

There is a version of this story where Nino kisses him, then. Kisses him with all the pent up sadness and regret and longing and love, always love, that he’s kept behind his ribcage for years. There is a version of this story where Ohno kisses him back under the stars that the two of them know so well. Takes his hand and smiles shyly, as if there had never been hurt between them. There is a version of this that ends with neither of them hurt.

There is a version of this story that isn’t complicated, and messy, and hard. This is not that story.

(A truth: Sho thought he was letting Nino give a confession long-unspoken. Nino knew that he was going to deliver an eulogy for a love that has long seeped away into the earth.)

“...I’m sorry,” Nino says again, his voice cracking this time. It hurts, the way flushing out a wound has to hurt. It hurts more when Ohno doesn’t look surprised.

“I know,” Ohno replies, unbearably gentle. “It’s okay.”

“I really-” Nino presses his teeth down into his lip. Refuses to let himself cry. He doesn’t deserve it. Not for this. “I really _did_ love you.”

“I know,” Ohno repeats. Then, quieter. “It’s going to be alright, Nino.”

“Why are _you_ comforting _me_ ?” Nino half-laughs, slightly hysterical with it. “I _just_ rejected you, Oh-chan. You should be cursing me out, or kicking something.”

Ohno’s smile gets a little sadder, a little more knowing. “No,” he states. “That’s what _Jun_ would do.”

Nino tightens his grip on the chains of the swing, making himself small. “I-”

“I understand you, Nino,” Ohno says, and it might be truer of him than of almost anyone else. “I know what you look like when you’re in love.” _Because I saw you while you were in love with_ me, he doesn’t say.

“It doesn’t matter.”

“Like it didn’t matter with me?”

The words are designed to hurt, and they do. Moreso for how unexpected they are, coming from Ohno.

“That’s different.”

“Different how?”

“You weren’t in love with _somebody else_ ,” Nino almost snaps this, but Ohno doesn’t falter. Just keeps swinging. Jun would’ve snapped back, Nino thinks suddenly. He would’ve snapped and sniped until Nino was smirking despite himself. How could the two people that he’d- he’d _fallen_ for be so utterly different?

“That’s not really the problem, is it?” As always, Ohno cuts to the heart of the matter, intuitive in a way that Nino hates. Between him and Aiba, it was like Nino couldn’t even _pretend_ to be a cold, unaffected bastard. Ohno tilts his head over at him, and Nino remembers with a pang when his hair used to be long enough to fall into his face when he did that, before they’d been shorn into the spiky cut they’re in now. “You were always like this, Nino. You don’t like for things to change.”

“I’m fine with change!” Nino says defensively. 

Ohno looks at him with a glance that somehow simultaneously conveys deep understanding and exasperation. “Not when it has to do with you,” he points out. “You- you make up all these roadmaps about how things are supposed to go, and convince yourself that they’re the _only_ way things _can_ go.” he swings a little higher, and Nino watches him. “And you think that everything going to plan is the only way you can keep anyone from being hurt.”

Nino looks at his feet, and thinks about seeing Jun’s shadow stretch out behind him, the way it’d been easier looking at that then at the betrayal in his face. He and Jun had always bickered, always fought, but there’d never been any real _hurt_ in it. They’d always had some idea of the other’s weaknesses, but never used it to wound before then. 

The way they had fought - the way that they had _hurt_ each other - had unsettled Nino almost more than the fight itself. It was the realization that, at some point, they had both handed each other their softest spots, the ones that were sharp and fragile and raw to the touch. Nino could count on one hand the number of people who could _hurt_ him like that, and the fact that he had apparently allowed Jun into that circle without notice- it was strange. Disquieting.

Terrifying.

“You thought that pushing me away was better for the two of us,” Ohno is saying, and Nino has never known anyone as thoughtlessly brave as he was. “But you were _wrong_.” He goes silent for a moment, gathering his words, then slows his swinging. Looks Nino in the eye. “Don’t be scared, Nino. We were never a- a novel, with the ending already written. We were a journal, going day by day. Like one of those summer track record ones, you know?”

“The ones you never wrote?”

“The ones you always made up on the last day before school,” Nino laughs a little, and Ohno’s nose scrunches up with his small, pleased smile. “It’s- yeah. It’s exactly like the ones you always made up. You keep trying to make up stories, so that you can write them a happy ending. Happy endings aren’t _written_ , Nino. They’re lived.”

“Sounds like the words of someone who still doesn’t have a decent grasp on kanji yet,” Nino comments, trying not to pay attention to the pounding in his chest.

Ohno doesn’t roll his eyes like Sho would’ve, or punch his shoulder the way Aiba would’ve. But the Look he gives Nino is reminiscent of them, and Nino realizes for the first time that perhaps it wouldn’t be so hard to be friends - not _just_ friends, because his friendship had always been a privilege beyond belief - with him again after all.

“Don’t be _scared_ , Nino,” Ohno insists. Nino takes a breath, lets it out. 

He doesn’t think he can follow Ohno’s instructions, doesn’t know if he’s even able to _try_. But Ohno almost makes it sound doable, even for a coward like him, and that makes him look over at the boy he’d loved so much and so well and say: “Thank you.”

Ohno’s smile- still beautiful, still beloved, but no longer heart-stopping, broadens. “You’re welcome,” he says, and it feels like another beginning.

✼

“We’ve really got to stop meeting in these places,” Nino says mildly, somehow not at all surprised when Jun had dragged him by the wrist into what looks like a long-unused clubroom before the first period bell. “Also, I think there’s this thing called _class_ that we’re both supposed to be going to right now.”

He’s proud of his words for coming out without a tremor. When Jun pauses to shove the door shut behind him, Nino wrenches his arm away and shoves his hands into his pockets to hide their shaking.

“ _Fuck_ class,” Jun says, so sharp that it startles Nino, though it really shouldn’t. Jun had always been a bundled-up bouquet of glass kind of person, sharp and surprisingly fragile. His sharpness usually took a more precise form, though, the way a mosaic was made of panes of sharp glass rather than the edges of a broken window.

Jun steps closer to Nino, and Nino forces himself not to take a step back. “Giving up your valedictorian seat, then? That’s kind of a shocker.”

“ _Nino_ ,” Jun says, and some part of Nino wants to make a face at him. He doesn’t think they’re at that place anymore, though, so he keeps his features still.

“What? You were the one who dragged me in here.”

“ _You-_ ” Jun cuts himself off, face going almost soft and vulnerable for a second before shuttering again. Nino stares at the waves of emotion in wonder and a little hysteria- hadn’t Jun _learned_ by now that it’s always a terrible idea to show him any of his weaknesses? Nino wants, a little, to take his shoulders and _shake_ him, to tell him to stop being so stupid and take all his vulnerabilities far, far away, where Nino couldn’t hurt him with them.

Instead, he stays silent, and keeps watching.

Jun runs a hand through his hair, a little more rumpled than usual. “Sho said-” he falters, barrels on. “He said that he’d like to go on a date with me.”

Nino carefully conceals his true reaction, and raises an eyebrow. “...congratulations,” he says dryly. “I hope you’ll be very happy together. I’d tell you that I’ll kick your ass if you hurt him, but I think that’s a little gauche. I’m more of a subtle life-ruining type, if we have to put a label on-”

“I told him no.”

For a moment, the world tilts a degree, and Nino blinks. Tries to make sense of things. “I’m sorry?”

“- and _he_ told me that _you_ were the one who told him to give it a shot,” Jun barrels over Nino’s confusion with all the delicacy of a freight train. “What the _fuck_ , Nino-”

“Sorry, can we go back to the part where you rejected the love of your life?” Nino cuts him off more firmly, this time. Stares at him incredulously. “If this- fuck, if this is about what happened, I’m not going to _sabotage_ you just because I’m angry-”

“Are you?” Jun sounds- strange. Intent. Nino isn’t sure how to read his tone, and that unsettles him. “Are you still angry?”

Normally, this is where Nino would make a joke, or deflect, or just let his silence make Jun draw all the wrong conclusions for him. Instead, something raw and unpractised tumbles out of his mouth. “No. I’m- no.”

Jun looks a little shocked, and Nino feels slightly stung at the idea that Jun would think that he’d so easily hold a grudge for him saying things that were hurtful, yes, but also true. Betrayal isn’t something that Nino usually blames others for. After all, if you hand someone a knife, then it was your own goddamned fault if they stab you. Especially if you stabbed them in return.

Then again, that wasn’t really what happened.

“But I hurt you,” Jun sounds a little puzzled, and perhaps a little regretful. “I got mad at you for no reason, and I said-”

“I kept something from you,” Nino shrugs, having no desire to rehash what he’d said. It was nothing he hadn’t already known, anyways. “You were hurt, and you lashed out. I lashed out right back.”

“I shouldn’t have, though,” And Jun looks down at his hands, then. Clenches them into fists. It’s one of the things that makes him so impossible to hate, that he flares and burns and sometimes hurts others because of that, but he always tries to be better. It’s hard to hate someone who tries so hard to be good. “It wasn’t any of my business, what happened between you and Ohno- before. I’m sorry for that. And for everything after.”

Nino stares. “We were friends,” he says, and blinks at the way Jun flinches at the past tense. “And you thought I’d kept something important from you. It’s understandable for you to be mad.”

“That doesn’t make it _right_ ,” Jun’s voice is fierce, and he’s so _good_ that Nino wants to laugh. Wants to cry. He and Sho were _perfect_ for each other.

Instead, he just swallows. “No,” he admits. “It doesn’t.” he closes his eyes, opens them. “It doesn’t make what I did right, either. I’m sorry.” It’s a difficult apology, one that gets stuck in his throat before he lets it out. He’s not used to people sticking around long enough for him to apologize to. It’s strangely comforting to realize that he still knows how. “And I’m not angry anymore, I promise. If you- you don’t have to hold yourself back, because of me.”

Jun actually growls at that, and it’s somewhere between baffling and extremely hot. “I didn’t reject him because I was worried about you getting in the way,” he says, frustrated. “I-”

After a moment of silence, Nino prompts him. “You...?”

“Are you really going to make me say it?”

“It’s kind of hard to respond when I don’t actually know what you want to say,” Nino points out reasonably. 

Jun looks at him incredulously. “You- don’t know?” he says, sounding genuinely baffled. “You can’t _tell_?”

“Contrary to popular opinion, I’m not actually a mind-reader.” Nino feels something at the back of his mind begin to sound alarms at him. He knows where this is going- he’s not a mind-reader, but he’s not an idiot, either. He just doesn’t want to be the person who had to deal with this.

God _dammit_ , Sho, couldn’t he have been a little more convincing?

“Literally nobody thought you were,” Jun parries back, seemingly on instinct. “But...” he frowns, the furrow on his brow deepening. Nino pushes his hands deeper into his pockets, determined not to smooth out that line until Jun was smiling again. It’s not his place to, no matter what Jun’s gotten into his head. 

When Jun keeps staring at him, Nino keeps his face steady, unmoved. For a few long moments, they stand in silence, each refusing to take the next step. 

Then:

“You _do_ know.”

Nino closes his eyes, and wonders when he’d become such an open book. He hears a rustle of cloth, and when he opens his eyes again Jun has stepped closer, closer than Nino is comfortable with. Nino doesn’t step back.

“Please don’t,” he says, quietly.

“Why?” Jun sounds- _sad_. Nino has seen Jun frustrated and joyous and shy, but he’s never seen him this resigned before. It squeezes something inside of him painfully.

“You _love_ Sho,” Nino says, helplessly. “You’ve _always_ loved him. I can’t let you throw that away. I’m sorry you thought you had to.”

That, inexplicable, makes Jun’s eyes flash with anger again. “Since when have you been manipulating me into falling in love with you?” Jun asks, and his sideways confession detonates with all the grace of a match thrown into a box of dynamite. Nino flinches back, not bothering to hide it this time, and Jun ignores it. Moves even closer. “This is _my choice_ , Nino. Nobody else’s. I’m not letting anything cloud my judgement.” He reaches out and touches Nino’s shoulder, and the warmth of his fingers seeps through the thin material like a furnace. “Are you?”

Nino looks at him, with all his earnestness and fire and impossible love, and wonders when this story began to unravel so completely at the seams. _This isn’t the way it’s supposed to go_ , he thinks.

A voice in his mind that sounds like Aiba’s says, wryly: _There’s nothing about this that’s_ supposed _to happen. That doesn't mean it’s not_ good _, just different._

 _This isn’t the story I thought I’d be in_ , Nino admits to himself helplessly.

Sho’s voice is warm when he says _I don’t think you know yourself very well at all, when it comes to things like this_ . _That’s okay, you know?_

 _I’m scared_ , whispers something at the bottom of Nino’s heart, more honest than any of the excuses before.

Ohno sounds like he’s giving a blessing as he murmurs: _Be brave._

“This is a really terrible idea,” Nino says, more to himself than anyone else, and closes the last sliver of space between them.

If Nino had ever thought about it (and he thinks now he might be allowed to say that he has, frequently), he would’ve thought of Jun as someone who kisses like it’s a competition, all force and sharp edges of teeth. Instead, he kisses Nino quietly, like an unspoken question. Then, as Nino gently leans closer, like a jubilant answer. Nino feels himself smile against Jun’s lips in instinctive response to that bright, gleaming joy, and the crook of his lips makes it too hard for them to keep kissing.

He pulls away, not bothering to hide his smile, and watches Jun look at him with satisfaction and something like affection in his eyes.

“This doesn’t fix everything,” Jun tells him, a little too giddy to sound believable, but Nino listens anyways.

“I know,” he responds, because it’s the truth. This is the love story that leaves behind the most loose ends, the most broken hearts. It’d be a lie to say that Nino doesn’t regret some of it, the convoluted routes that they took to get here, the people that they accidentally hurt, the could-have-beens they left behind. But, then again, that’s what makes the road _theirs’_ , and Nino can’t quite bring himself to regret that.

The thing about first loves, Nino realizes, is that they _are_ a kind of true love. The kind of truth that builds the foundation for the things you believe about yourself, the stories you want to tell. First loves are the fire that leaves behind the ashes and smoke that will perfume every love you have afterwards, the weeds that you can never quite expel from your heart. Loving Ohno was the best kind of love that he could’ve had: the kind of love that taught him what he wanted to become.

The thing about the love stories that come _after_ that- well, they’re blank pages. Possibilities.

Nino takes Jun’s hand, and thinks that it’s as good an ending (a beginning) as any.


End file.
